People have been approaching me more and more as the days go by, especially at lunch. They’re getting bolder. I find it annoying, especially since they keep asking the same two or three questions. “What’s it like?” “What’s the demon like?” “Are they a guy or a girl?” Even more annoying when I don’t know the answers to these questions. Fortunately, the FBI has started keeping them away.

35 was quiet the rest of the day after I blew up the prairie dog. They are clearly not happy about it. The whole family has asked both me and them why they can’t see their eyes anymore. Their answer? That I “lost progress.”

Because of that, they have not been willing to teach me how to astral project. I guess I get it. I messed up, whatever it was. But 35 then offered that they might be willing to teach me if I read “Nonviolent Communication” with them and start journaling my feelings.

When they said that, I was like “So wait, how am I supposed to do this? Just pull out a journal and say ‘9/5/2012 5:12:26 PM – I feel sad?’”

And they were like “Yeah, if you think that is so frivolous and it helps you remember, sure.”

So, I grabbed an extra composition book, and labeled it “Feeling Log,” and I’ve been writing in it since. So, I pull it out and write “9/7/2012.” I look at my phone. “9:27:21 AM- I feel nothing.” Which is the same as the last three entries.

Alexia and I are working together on exercise about stimuli and responses. She notices what I’m doing.

“Feeling Log?” she asks.

“It was 35’s idea,” I reflexively defend.

“Oh, wow! That’s interesting,” she comments.

“What is?” I’m actually confused. What part is interesting?

“That they’re making you do that. Like, a shadow thing takes control of you to make you…write your feelings down?”

I’ll admit, I’m not sure I could have come up with something like that. It’s weird, to say the least. But then again, 35 is as unpredictable as the weather a hundred years from now. Alexia does have one thing wrong, though.

“They’re not ‘making’ me do it, I’m doing it on my own.” With the promise of being able to leave my body the way 35 can.

“Really?” she says looking shocked.

“Yeah, really. Something wrong?”

“No, not at all. Did The Shadow put you up to it or something?”

“You can say ‘yes,’” 35 assures.

“Yes,” I deflate.

“Oh, okay.”  She smiles. “That’s dope.”

“They also have me reading ‘Nonviolent Communication,’” I add, not wanting to get back to the worksheet.

“Yeah, I heard, my mom got it to your mom.”

“Please thank her for me,” 35 requests.

“35 wants to thank you,” I tell her.

“You’re welcome,” she says back to them. “So why did you set Brock up to do this?”

“I blew up a prairie dog,” I answer without thinking.

She just goes “Oh,” and slumps a little bit in her chair.

Before I could say anything else, a guy asks “Dude, you blew up a prairie dog?”

Another guy asks, “but was it him, or was it the ghost inside of him?”

“Dude, that’s epic!”

The questions start to overwhelm and irritate me, causing me to clench up and put my head down. Jeez, people! One at a time! I glance at Alexia. She’s buried in her worksheet. I’m guessing she does not like what she just heard.

I should not have said that. Dang it! Why!?!?

A few girls voice their concern.

“Ew, gross!”

“That’s so mean!”

“Did the ghost make him do it?”

I continue to clench up, even harder while Alexia is still silent, and everyone else is still talking. No. That’s it! I’ve had enough!

“Alright everyone!” I call out where everyone can hear me. “I was training to use a rifle powerful enough to kill elk, and a prairie dog showed up, and I blew him up! 35 is actually mad at me for doing it! Got it?”

This does nothing to quiet anyone down. If anything, people are asking more questions. DANG IT!!! I just want them to shut up!

“I thought the ghost was evil!”

“Is 35 a vegan?”

“But why would you just shoot an innocent animal?”

Mrs. Melvin has to intervene to calm everyone down. They all go back to working on their assignments. I finally start to calm down a bit.

“Kid,” 35 starts. “That rifle is technically stronger than some used to kill Bison in America and Cape Buffalo in Africa. You certainly did not need to use that much gun on the prairie dog, and you really do not need that much for elk. There’s no need to hurt yourself getting used to it. There are better options.”

“What other options?” I ask, not expecting an answer. “It’s not like Agent Collins is gonna let me borrow his rifle.”

“Look, that’s all beside the point. The issue is not that you blew up a prairie dog, it’s how you handled it.”

“’Handled’ it? What’s there to handle? I shot a prairie dog, and that was it!”

“Emotionally. It felt like you were repressing your own thoughts and feelings in favor of someone else’s.”

“Uh…okay?”

“And look, you got bigger issues right now. Like how you just hurt your friend’s feelings. Pretty sure that’s not something friends do to each other.”

I turn back towards Alexia. Her head is hanging low over her section of the table right now.

“Hey, Alexia…”

“Don’t tell her ‘Sorry,’ unless you’re going to change your behavior,” 35 scolds.

Silence between the three of us.

“You know what? My bad. I overreached when I said that,” says 35. “You can forget I said that. I’m getting too worked up right now.”

Somehow, that scares me a little, so now, I don’t know what to say to them. Anything I say might make them even more mad. But I see their point about Alexia. Why apologize about something if you’re not gonna at least not do it again? Dang it!

“I’m sorry, I screwed up,” I say weakly.

“Who are you talking to?” 35 asks.

“Both you and Alexia,” I answer.

But Alexia doesn’t seem to respond to what I said.

35 takes a square breath.

“Look, you’re thirteen, you’ve got a lot on your plate, and worst of all, you’re being hurt in ways you don’t even realize, and I can’t even tell you what they are, you need to realize them for yourself. I feel awful about it. So please, don’t completely blame yourself.”

I stare at the table. I don’t know how to respond, react, or even what to think. How could I? When you get possessed by dark spirits, they’re supposed to make you do bad things, not act like another parent or teacher!

This is worse. Somehow, this is worse.

A tear falls off my face, onto the table. A shiny splatter on the rough grainy texture of the tabletop.

Guy-uh, this is so painful! Why did it have to come to this?

“Dude, are you crying?” somebody asks.

I look up. A few people are staring at me, including Alexia, Agent Thompson, and Mrs. Melvin.

“Do you need to go out in the hall?” she asks.

Another tear is rolling down my face. It can’t be me. It has to be 35. I haven’t cried like this since that one time I shot a hole in the birdhouse back in Kansas. I was eight. Dad was yelling, and Mom was also crying.

“No, I’m not. This is 35,” I answer the first guy. I then turn towards Mrs. Melvin and say, “yeah, I think I should.” I turn towards Alexia and say “I really am sorry.”

She looks at me with a sorrowful look, but doesn’t say anything back.

I grab my stuff and head out to the hall. I sit down on the floor to continue working on the assignment.

“Is everything alright?” asks Agent Collins.

“Yep,” I respond. “Apparently, just don’t mention what happened at Land’s End.”

I do my work in awkward silence for a few minutes, until I can’t stand it anymore.

“What’s even the point of the ‘Feeling Log?’” I inquire.

“To help you quantify what you’re feeling,” answers 35, seemingly feeling better. “You’re clearly having trouble doing that.”

“Look, I don’t feel positive emotions,” I remind them. “So why do you want me writing down all of the bad ones?”

“Because even if you can ‘only feel negative emotions,’ it’s beneficial to track your feelings as they happen.”

I scoff. “I’m a guy. I’m not supposed to have feelings.” The sentence feels awkward, but it’s true. Right?

“Really? Do you think Agent Collins has feelings?”

I look up to him. He’s still standing guard as usual. He has a slight frown on his face.

“I don’t know,” I answer.

“Why don’t you ask him then?”

“Cause it’ll look stupid!”

“You’ll never know if you don’t ask.”

Uuuugh! Fine!

I look Agent Collins dead in the eyes and ask “Do you have feelings?”

He looks surprised by that question. Of course he is! The answer is an obvious-

“Uh, yes I do?” he answers. He points to Agent Thompson and says “Just ask her.”

What?

“Indeed. I’ve worked with him long enough to say he does,” she adds. She almost scoffs.

“What brought that up?” he asks, expressing concern.

“I thought guys aren’t supposed to have them. Especially ones like you,” I respond. Seriously! What is wrong here?

“Why would I not have feelings?”

“Because you need to have a logical mind to solve crimes and such, right?”

He looks at me with his mouth wide open.

“While logic does help with the actual investigations I carry, feelings are what drive me to solve them in the first place. In fact, that’s why I even got this job.”

He looks away for a second, before turning back to me. “Who even told you that you need to be emotionless anyway? 35?”

“My dad, actually.”

Thompson scoffs. “Yep, that checks out.”

Collins gives me a sad, maybe pitying look.

I don’t say anything out loud. Dad always told me “Men think logically and women think emotionally,” and that “Logical decisions tend to be better.” He’s even called guys stupid for making decisions that look emotional. But now, here I am, faced with a literal FBI Agent. Logic is literally his job, and he’s telling me he lets feelings rule a part of his life? This is unbelievable!

I freeze up. This is too much for me to keep working.

“If emotions were such a handicap, then why would we evolve them in the first place?” 35 asks.

I make a puzzled look on my face for them to read.

“Right, you still have skeptics over that. Disregard my last statement until you’ve drawn your own conclusion on that matter.”

I do believe the Earth is 4.6 billion years old, and that evolution happened, just humans were created at the end of it, and the events of the Bible happened from there. Or I did. I don’t know what to believe in now. Especially with 35 here. I’m still blown away that anyone would think that they are an angel though. And who’s this “Guy-uh” that they keep mentioning when they’re not talking to me?

“In any case,” they continue. “I believe that emotions do have a purpose. They are your teachers.”

I scoff. “How can emotions be teachers?”

“They tell you what you want, or what you need.”

“And how does that work?”

“Take anger, for example. It means you want justice.”

“’Want justice?’”

“Yeah. Just think about it. When do you get angry?”

“Whenever Delilah annoys me?”

“Okay, that’ll work. So, you want justice whenever your sister annoys you, would you say that’s fair?”

I mean, I used to hit her whenever that happened. It’s been a couple years since I last did that. I but I still wish my parents were harsher on her about it. I often avoid her now, but lately, she hasn’t been doing that. I guess 35 has her too scared. Or at least, did.

“I want Mom and Dad to punish her for being annoying,” I admit. “Especially in a way that makes her hurt.”

“See? You feel she’s hurting you, and you want something to happen to her order to feel better about it. What is that if not justice?”

“Revenge,” I answer coldly.

35 exhales. “Right, I walked into that one. But hey, isn’t revenge an illusion of justice?”

I…don’t know. What even is the difference? Isn’t revenge justice but angry? Or is it done by the person vs done by the law…

Oh.

“Yeah, I guess I want justice, in a way,” I realize our loud.

“And that’s okay. Wanting justice is part of being human. It’s even part of loving someone or something if you ask me.”

I cringe.

“But you could also want it for having a sense of morals.”

I shrug. I guess. But I want it for myself, isn’t that selfish?

“But I want her to suffer!” I silently object.

“I get it,” 35 responds.

Wait, they do?

“So, sometimes, an angry outburst might not be in response to the immediate stimulus.”

Funny you use that word right now…

“There might be something else bothering you, giving you reason to be angry, but you only release it when it becomes too much to handle.”

“So what you’re saying is...”

“Delilah may anger you, but something else is making you angry enough to want to hurt her.”

“And what’s that?

“You called it the ‘screeching,’ once, if I recall. It might also be the reason for your video games; you’re using them to distract yourself. Among other things”

I stare thoughtlessly. What can be making me angry like that?!?! What could make me “need justice” so much?

“So, that’s why you should be journalling your feelings. Maybe that way, we can find out what it is, and put a stop to it. How does that sound?”

A drop of hope lands inside of me.

“I guess that sounds good!”

The bell rings, and the three of us walk over to my geography class, which breezes through quickly, leading us to lunch. Just as I’m about to finish my pizza, Courtney sits at my table.

“Hey, so Delilah tells me that you’re really good at math,” she starts.

“Yeah, I am,” I answer confidently. It’s true, as much as I hate it.

“Could you help me? I just don’t get it.”

“Okay, get what?”

She stares at me.

“What don’t you get?”  I clarify.

“Uh, like, how do you get the numbers?”

“Give me a second to finish my food so we can go to the library,” I request. I turn to the FBI agents and ask them “Can we go to the library?”

“Just a second,” replies Agent Collins as soon as he swallows his sandwich. He continues eating.

“Give us a second,” I repeat, turning back towards Courtney.

I finish off the school pizza as fast as I can and chug down the low-quality chocolate milk. It’s all for nothing, as the agents don’t seem to hurry up. Fortunately, they were close to done anyway. Agent Collins and I both get up to throw away our trash. Once we’re done, we grab Courtney and head to the library.

We sit together at a table, and she pulls out her assignment. It’s twenty-five problems of long division. She’s stuck on the first problem. 483 divided by seven.

“So, how do I even get started?” she asks cluelessly.

Okay. She really does not know what she’s doing. Cool! I get to teach her!

“Okay, so, how many times does seven fit into four?”

“Uh, zero?” she answers sounding unsure.

“Yep, so we put a zero above the four.”

“I get that part!” she exclaims. “But like, how do I know how many times seven goes into forty-eight?”

Does she not know her multiplication tables?

“I don’t know my times table,” she adds.

“Really?”

“Yes, really. I can’t remember them, I’ve tried. I just can’t!”

Don’tsaysomethingmean, don’tsaysomethingmean.

“That’s okay,” I say politely. “We can find a way around that.”

Right? There has to be a way around this…

“Can you count by sevens?” I ask.

“Uh, I think I can?”

“Okay, try counting by sevens, and raise a finger each time you count.”

“So like…?”

“Seven,” I raise my right pointer finger. “Fourteen,” I raise my middle finger. “Twenty-one,” I raise my ring finger, then I gesture her to keep going.

“Uh…Twenty-eight?” she guesses.

“Yep!” I raise my pinkie.

She thinks for a second. “Thirty-Five?”

“What about me?” They ask inside my head. “I zoned out.”

“Dude, it’s not about you, we’re literally counting by sevens,” I say out loud.

Courtney giggles a bit. I hear one of the agents snicker.

“Oh, my bad, uh carry on.”

They made me lose count! Oh wait, five times seven is thirty-five, so I hold out five fingers and remind her where she is.

“Forty-Two?”

I hold up my pointer on my left hand.

“Forty-Nine?”

“Yep, and that’s higher than forty-eight, so we don’t count that. We stop at forty-two. So how many times did we count?”

“Six!” she answers proudly.

“There you go!”

She subtracts forty-two from forty-eight, gets six, then pulls down the three for sixty-three. She repeats the process, but this time, uses her own fingers to count. She gets the answer right.

“Nice!” Comments 35. “But someone must have really wanted that to be the answer.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

“Nothing.”

Whatever.

She continues for the next three problems perfectly. Then, it asks her to divide by eighteen. She can’t count by eighteen, so I suggest just adding by 18’s on paper. This seems to mostly work, I do have to correct her addition for the first problem, but she gets it right in the end.

“I think I’ve got this, thank you!”

She packs up her stuff to leave.

“By the way, do you know what Delilah likes?”

I think for a second. No, actually I don’t. She likes art, I guess. And anything related to the ocean. And horses. Eh, what does it matter?

“No, I don’t. Aside from annoying me,” I answer practically.

“Really? Not her favorite color or anything?” she seems saddened.

“Well, she likes the ocean, I guess,” I add.

“Oh, okay, thank you! Bye Brock!” She waves as she walks away.

Not knowing what else to do, I head straight to my next period after stopping by my locker to pick up my work and the book 35 wants. Well, looks like I made the right call. The bell rings as soon as I get to the door. I go sit down at my seat. It’s not long before Alexia shows up. The bell soon rings again.

I look at her several times. I think she’s mad at me for the prairie dog thing. She’s focused on her work, and she is not smiling. Should I say sorry? Except, you shouldn’t unless you’re gonna change your behavior. At least, according to 35.

I can’t say I won’t blow up another prairie dog. Or not keep hunting them.

Are we not gonna be friends anymore?

“Hey kid, why don’t you try nonviolent communication?” suggests 35, sensing my dilemma.

“I don’t know how!” I object.

“Do you have the book?”

“Yes…”

I pull it out and start reading.

Okay, so, Michael Rosenberg, he’s telling the story of how he moved to Detroit, and got beaten up for being Jewish, and now a story from the Holocaust, and now a story where a drunk man is looking for his car keys under a street lamp. An officer asks him where he thinks he dropped them, and he thinks he dropped them in the alley. The officer asks why he’s looking under the street lamp. And the guy answers that it’s easier to see under the street lamp. (Huh. I guess I see what he’s trying to say. We only work with what we know? With what we can see? So, we move the light to where it’s needed?) Yeah, yeah, giving is good. But I never feel good about giving. Maybe I’m selfish.

A HA! The how-to! Observations, feelings, needs, requests. I go over the page several times. I need to get this right. So, I go over what happened. I blew up a prairie dog, and it made her mad. That part is easy. But how do I cover the “feelings” part? I could just say that I don’t like that I made her angry. Close enough, right? But what do I need?

“You can say what you want,” 35 suggests.

“Which is what? For her to not be angry?”

“For you two to be friends. If you don’t want to be her friend, there’s no point in talking to her, wouldn’t you think?”

Gosh dang it, 35. Why do you have to be right about everything?

I get up and walk over to her desk after checking with Agent Collins. Fortunately, the teacher here doesn’t care, as long as we look busy. I stand next to her desk, with my left hand holding my right wrist.

“Hey, Alexia?” I start nervously.

She keeps looking down at her work.

“I, uh…” I stutter.

She looks up at me and asks “Yes?” somewhat impatiently.

She’s staring at me with her dark brown eyes. They contrast sharply to her faded black skin. They almost match her long, straight, black hair that reaches the middle of the orange shirt she’s wearing, which matches the lip gloss on her frowning lips. Her eyebrows may be as round as her other features, but that doesn’t hide that they’re frowning too!

She’s pretty, she’s my friend, and she’s staring right into me like she’s gonna kill me!

What do I do? What do I say?! Right, Observations, Feelings, Needs, Requests. Observations, feelings, needs, requests. Okay.

“So, I noticed when I mentioned the prairie dog, you kinda went quiet. I’m worried that you’re mad at me. Can we still be friends?”

Alexia takes a long, deep, tense breath in. Her face looks serious. Oh no. She’s definitely mad. This is not gonna be good! She looks right at me and her face…softens?

“Look Brock, I get it, it’s something that you and your dad like doing, but could you please just…not? Or at least, just not tell me about it?”

Oh. That went better than I thought.

“Yeah…sure,” I respond, nervous but relieved.

“Thank you,” she replies. “It makes me sick hearing details about you hurting animals.”

“Well, technically, I never gave you any details…”

She glares at me.

“Right, sorry. Won’t happen again.”

I back away, and she looks back down at her work. I go back to my desk and do the same. Might as well, since I didn’t finish my biology worksheet earlier. After a few minutes, she comes over to my desk.

“Can we work together on this?” she asks.

I let out a sigh of relief. Thank goodness! I was worried that I was toast.

“Is that relief I feel?” asks 35.

“Yeah, of course,” I answer.

“Relief is a feeling,” they state.

“Yeah, so?”

“Relief, is a feeling.”

Why do they sound like they’re pointing something ou-

OH.

“Does that really count?” I ask to be sure.

“Yeah. Gotta start somewhere. But first, answer her question.”

“What question?”

Alexia continues to look at me.

“Oh,” I say out loud. “Yeah, sure, just let me write something down first.”

She sits down next to me as I pull out my “Feeling Log.”

“9/7/2012 12:38 PM- I feel relieved that Alexia still wants to be my friend,”

I then consider that it’s out of context.

“…after feeling worried that she didn’t.”

I close the book and turn towards Alexia. She almost snorts with laughter.

“God, you’re such a dork,” she tells me with a smirk.

“Ha, she called you a whale shaft!” 35 joked.

If I was facing 35, I’d glare at them. Just then, Alexia lowers her head and goes “Ow.”

“Are you okay” I ask her.

“Sure,” she says, rubbing her forehead. She continues “So where were we?”

**** (After school)

Mom did not say a word the whole ride home. She’s been getting quieter lately, but she hasn’t been completely silent before now. Odd. I almost miss it when she was more talkative.

I’m sitting on my bed, doing my Environmental Science homework. I’d probably have a little less to do if it wasn’t for me getting as many glances of Tiffany as I can, but it’s worth it. She’s that pretty! And there’s something…else? Like, something deep? Not quite an obsession, but looking at her just…

Am I crushing on her?

“I wouldn’t assume so,” 35 answers.

On one hand, I do not like how 35 answered that without me wanting them to. On the other hand…WHAT?

“What else could it be?” I ask, half confused, half curious.

“Longing, Hatred, Jealousy, maybe a feeling of something familiar?” they suggest.

“What if it’s just plain lust?” I offer. Not that it’s any better than what they suggested. How could it be any of those things? I don’t hate her, and what about her could I be jealous of? She’s barely passing the class! And she’s too hung up on God to really pay attention…

“It can be,” they admit. “You’re already at the age of playing with yourself, so it’s not like that’s off the table.”

I stare blankly at my computer.

“If you want to know what it is, you can try journalling it next time you see her.,” they suggest.

Yeah, I guess I can do that! Wow! This might come in handy!

“Wow, thanks!” I say as I-

I CAN SEE THEIR EYES AGAIN!

I almost smile as I see them! I, uh…

“Wanna write this down?” I hear them chime in. (Did I just see their mouth move too?)

“Yes I do!”

And I do.